So the wait is finally over and players are logging onto PSHome in droves to wait in lines and perform acts of social desperatation. I briefly loaded it up to see the avatar creation and while impressed with the graphical quality, I just couldn’t get into it. I applaud the effort, especially considering it is a free service. But I couldn’t help but overhear the collective groan of PS Homies playing the waiting-in-line game. Apparently there’s bowling and game machines that are playable where you actually have to sit in line to play.
You might as well design a PS Home roller coaster that you actually have to wait 2 hours to get on. At the very least you can dry hump the female avatars you encounter.
The long-anticipated Ghostbusters game has a new video and boy does it aim to impress. The characters are lovingly rendered with a fun caricatured style that clearly represent their actor’s counterparts. Granted, I wouldn’t want to wait 20 years every time they made a video game based off a movie property, but this is the quality that can be achieved when studios aren’t forced to coincide their game launch along side the movie, official marshmallow cereal, lunchbox, bedspread, and action figure line with 24 points of articulation.
First off let me say that if you are either a Mortal Kombat fan or a superhero fan, this game is for you. That being said lets get to the nuts and bolts of what makes this game great and what keeps it from being perfect.
The Pros:
The graphics are beautiful and the models are excellently crafted. The background stages take you everywhere you’d expect to go from the Batcave, the Fortress of Solitude, Paradise Island and the Lantern universe headquarters planet of OA. The fighters have specularity maps that reflect real-time light sources that are just an awesome sight to behold.
The story mode takes you though both sides in animated cut scene narratives and breathes life to all of the characters. Everything is explained thoroughly by comic book authors that reconcile both universes coexisting though existing video game and comic book mythos.
In terms of gameplay, it’s the best one since MKII. Aside from the occasional sidestep the fights are held pretty much on a 2D axis. The essence of old 2D kombat is retained with current-gen 3D graphics. The mechanics have been simplified to combo/special move stringing of when and where to perform them.
The Cons:
After such a lavish production quality provided by the Story Mode, the single character Arcade endings only offer a single art rendering and brief voiceover ending. It’s still more than most current fighting games offer but after experiencing Story Mode, they are a bit of a let down.
As fun as the game is, there are still some poorly designed combo strings that snuck their way past testing. “Infinites”, as they’re called, are combos that that can be strung for an eternity by poor and lazy coding. The final boss AI is also very cheap but all of these are par for course for Mortal Kombat games. Something to consider though is that this is the first time an MK game can be patched though the Playstation Network and Xbox Live. As it seems it’s already received an update.
As everyone on the internet has already loudly vocalized, the teen rated diet fatalities simply leave you wanting more. They’re still worth doing since, again, they provide what most fighting games still lack: a “finisher” type of feature. Not a huge gripe but something to keep the game from being perfect.
Bottom Line:
A solid title for any fan of the comic book or fighting game genre.
A must-have for any fan of both.
Since we first saw MK vs DCU here at PS3Pub, there has been a lot of press coverage about the title involving roster announcements, game features and so on. Newly released is this video with many of the recently announced characters in full combat showing moves we’ve never seen before.
If you’ve never heard of Bayonetta, she’s going to be make her debut in this very Devil May Cry action title. Seems like she takes Dante’s formula and cranks it to 11. Possibly even a 12 or 13. This is fitting because the creator of DMC and Viewtiful Joe is the mad scientist behind this chick. She uses her hair as weapons and/or clothes apparently, and adorns some hottie Baroness spectacles.
But it’s her hyper-style Matrix-fu aerial acrobatic laser kick insanity that draws you in. I think at some point she actually blows someone’s head off with her shotgun boot. She’s really out there - Unappologetically over the top and I can totally dig that.
But don’t just take my word for it. Check her out in the vid here!
With the PlayStation Network becoming more and more user friendly, players are becoming more involved in the online capabilities of the PS3. Some games even have a bluetooth package available to gain access to voice chat and some simply use their choice of headset for communication on PSN. Well Sony has finally released an image of their long overdue brand of bluetooth headset. This may finally give me an excuse to stop putting that particular purchase off.
So Kotaku published an article last week displaying the sales chart of PS3 losing to Xbox in sales. In Japan! The video game psychos of the universe are choosing the 360 over their domestic brand Sony! This is by no means a reaction of panic assuming the demise of the Playstation 3, but their lack of a competitive price point is starting to show.
Found a developer interview from the StreetFighter Blog about Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Street Fighter hype is escalating due to SF4’s imminent 2009 and nows the perfect time to warm up your quarter circle hadouken slide moves. In the interview, Capcom Associate Producer, Rey Jimenez, gives us a heads up on what to expect from the revisiting of the all-time classic. Udon Entertainment is redoing much of the game art and cut scenes. Expect some dope remixes of some of the definitive theme songs of the character rosters in their home stages.
Be on the lookout Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix this year.
So the Xbox is going to offer a significant price cut and the PS3 is well…not. Sony’s excuse/defense is that they’re “Confident that consumers are making choices driven by value.” and thus will not be competitive in response to 360’s price drop to the $200 arena. I’ve been reading reports on the gamer blogosphere of this statement and no one seems to be calling them out on this very elusive and diplomatic response to the very basic question:
“Why isn’t the PS3 going to make the price cut?”
Well in my opinion, they can’t afford to. Sony should have just said that.
I think Sony still has to make a lot of their money back. It’s no secret that the PS3 had a rough start selling units due to the whopping $600 introductory cost. Because of their blu-ray player, their monster machine came with a monster price tag. They may have won the blu-ray battle but hopefully not at the cost of the console war. If I didn’t have a current-gen system by this holiday season, despite its hardware issues, a $200 Xbox 360 would look mighty attractive.
I’m not even arguing that the PS3 isn’t worth the 4 to 500 dollar price tag. I just find it a bit insulting that the reason they’re not making a competitive move is because “the PS3 offers the value…” I far prefer the PS3 over any competitor but by that logic, the 360 actually offers more value, especially considering that the 360 price cut would actually better correlate the very nature of the word “value”. But to be fair, $200 is what they should be charging for defective hardware anyway.
Always been a huge Resident Evil fan and I repeatedly punish myself for still not having gone through Resident Evil 4. But if you haven’t caught one of the more recent trailers it pretty much has it all: bike chases, shotguns, long legs, a walking monster made completely of tentacles, and of course a metric asston of zombies!
Resident Evil 5 comes to us finally in current generation graphics and according to buzz on the internet, co-op playability, which is what this series has been needing for years, and will absolutely guarantee my purchase come first quarter ‘09.
